Affinity: Portrait Of A Planeswalker
by YamiPaladinofChaos
Summary: [Complete] In the world of magic, there are five colors. Every person has an affinity for one... everyone save Urza Planeswalker. A series of vignettes on the life of Dominaria's strange defender.
1. Gray

Disclaimer- I don't own Magic: The Gathering.

Magic.

Lifeblood of the world.

Five colors.

Red, color of blood and fire, mountain and earth. Color of fury and rage and passion.

Green, color of flora and fauna, nature and forest. Color of growth and life and renewal.

White, color of purity and heaven, plains and fields. Color of healing and light and wrath.

Blue, color of water and ice, sea and sky. Color of manipulation and trickery and deceit.

Black, color of dark and hell, swamp and decay. Color of greed and malice and death.

Mages affiliated themselves with different colors according to their natures and birthplaces. Those of the plains thrived with white mana, those of the sea loosed their blue mana, and so on, and so forth.

Urza Planeswalker, as was his right as a 'Walker, could use each and every color of Magic. And yet he was unique among all magic users, for he affiliated himself with no color.

Every other planeswalker, despite their ability to tap into all magic, still flocked to their natural colors. Those who had lived their mortal lives as sailors clung to blue mana, those who had known greed and death delved into black magic, those who were full of fury and hate burned with red, those of growth and life held fast to green mana, and the righteous stuck to the power of white magic.

But not Urza.

He wasn't into growing things, or manipulation, or healing, or anger, or death. He cared nothing for any color of magic, drawing upon them for aid, nothing more.

Not even blue mana, the magic many believed Urza held favor for, was close enough for him to identify with.

There was no part of this world that Urza Planewalker could hold affinity for.

Where another planeswalker walked among fields of wheat or soared in the sky or ambled around forests, Urza tinkered in his labs, among machines and metal. Where any other mage felt affinity for sea or swamp, plains or forest or mountain, Urza loved the artifact, the intricacy of it, the almost otherwordly quality of it.

Barrin once commented that Urza seemed more Phyrexian, constructing artifacts instead of wielding magic, always questing for perfection, never satisfied with what came before, what already exists. He struggled for the compleat, as the Phyrexians named it.

In reply, Urza merely noted that one fights fire with fire.

Barely audible, the Master Mage had remarked that fire burns the body, while Phyrexia corrupts the soul.

The planeswalker had nothing to say to that, merely continuing to work on his machines.

No, Urza Planeswalker cared not for this world, only for his machines, his metals, and his vengeance against Phyrexia.

He was neither red nor white nor green nor blue nor black.

He was a shade of gray.


	2. Achroma

Disclaimer- I don't own Magic: The Gathering.

It all makes sense now.

All his life, the Ineffable has watched over him, guided him to this very hour...

When he would at last kneel before Lord Yawgmoth, a humble servant.

Urza's entire millennial life has been centered around Phyrexia, though foolishly trying to destroy that which he most loves.

After all, Phyrexia is a world of machine and metal- Urza's world.

Dominaria is a world of colors and magic and nature, everything Urza despises.

Now at last, he knows were he belongs.

Here, kneeling on the obsidian dais, before the Ineffable Yawgmoth.

Now, in this place, beyond definition, he can glimpse the infinite genius that is Phyrexia.

This is what Urza has wanted for... forever. A perfect world, where machine comes to life and spirit and body are one and the same.

And here is the wonderful mercy of the Ineffable. To forgive His most hated foe, Urza Planeswalker, and allow his unworthy self to enter the mind of a god.

How could he have believed he could defeat the Lord of Death? Yawgmoth is infinite, a god of machine and death- perfection.

There is no power that can oppose the Ineffable, no choice but one.

To kneel.

After all, what else can one do, when in the mind of a god?

And most wondrous of all, Urza has found his home.

True, Yawgmoth is the very essence of black mana, but he is beyond that, beyond any mere definition of colors.

He has transcended the colors of magic, and become achroma- absence of color.

A state Urza himself wishes to find.

No longer one of grays, confused about his place in the world. He was never at home in Dominaria.

Only here, in the bosom of Yawgmoth does Urza Planeswalker know where he belongs.

Prostrate before the Ineffable, hoping to know even a fraction of the wonder of Phyrexia.

Almost lazily, the Lord of Death grants his wish, and allows him another view of the wonder of this artificial world.

And even as he continues to kneel, he knows.

In glimpsing the wonder of the Ineffable, Urza too, has transcended.

Now he too is achroma.


	3. Golden

Disclaimer- I don't own Magic: The Gathering, which is property of Wizard's of the Coast.

This is the final.

The end.

Somehow, Urza always knew that he wouldn't survive the war against Yawgmoth.

After all, spending four millennia on one goal, forever focused on what would come to pass _tomorrow_, he never once realized that he would have nothing without Phyrexia.

Without opposition, Urza would simply continue tinkering and improving his machines, until he became a second Yawgmoth.

Before his link to the Ineffable was severed by Gerrard and the Soul Halberd, he would have welcomed such a chance. But now, he knows that this is the only way he could have ended his life.

Gerrard, his son in so many ways, will end it. The boy hates him with a passion. And he should.

Urza engineered him, cross bred hero after hero, to create one hero that was the sum of a thousand others. Not a white knight, or a pure heart. Not a man of chivalry and honor, of rules and white mana. No, that could be twisted by Phyrexia. It had to be someone like him.

Someone who understood Phyrexia... and hated it. Who was not a saint but a warrior, a sinning paragon of courage.

And like Urza, Gerrard Capashen will die in the conflagration that will ultimately unmake the Lord of Death.

These two men were made for this day.

A millennia old madman and his reckless progeny.

To call them heroes before this day would be to stretch the definition of a hero.

But now, now they can be heroes.

Together, they will sacrifice all they are to kill Death.

Gerrard reaches for him now, hands raised. His rugged, exhausted features look remorseful.

But this is the only way.

With his gemstone eyes, Urza acknowledges the end.

And even as calloused, impossibly strong hands tear into his skull, taking the Powerstones that make him a Planeswalker, Urza feels nothing but the one thing he has never known since he slew his brother, destroyed a continent, rocked a world, and ascended.

Peace.

Even as his life force begins to ebb, his immortal soul passing from this realm, he feels the power that is vivified by his sacrifice.

It is pure.

It is golden, full of all colors, mixing together to become a pure, untainted, vindicating force.

An avenging fury of a goddess, manifest to strike down Yawgmoth.

The light is blinding now, and sweeps across his and Gerrard's forms, unmaking them entirely. Soon it will unmake a god.

The pain is unbearable, melting flesh and bone away with effortless ease.

And still, Urza is satisfied.

He knows peace, dying a hero's death.

He has sacrificed all he is to saving the world.

He is golden.

Author's Notes

What began as a one shot character sketch became a three part look into the psyche of the most enigmatic hero I've ever come across. I enjoyed it, because it was an exercising a type of writing I rather enjoy.


End file.
